Personalization and the Digital Client Experience - FutureVault Expert Roundup

WealthTech Roundtable: Personalization and Creating a Digital Client Experience (DCX) 

In our first edition of FutureVault’s WealthTech Roundtable, we connected with several experts who live at the crossroads of innovation, practice management, and emerging industry trends, in an effort to unpack two key themes.  

Personalization and the Digital Client Experience.  

These two themes have garnered significant interest across the industry, becoming a major focus for firms and advisors; at least the ones looking to gain a competitive edge now and well into the future.  

These two themes are so critical because delivering true value and building meaningful relationships starts and ends with clients and their family members.  

Here at FutureVault, it’s why we’re so bullish on Personal Life Management, and why we’ve created the Personal Life Management Vault™. 

Here’s what we know to be true; it all starts and ends with your clients. The firms (and advisors) that invest in delivering value by creating personalized experiences and elevating the digital client experience will be the ones that reap benefits for generations to come.  

But what exactly is involved in creating personalized experiences and elevating your digital client experiences? 

In order to find one, we sought out the expertise of the following experts: 

Below are the four questions we asked each of our guest experts.  

  1. What comes to mind when you think of personalization and why is it so important or relevant for advisors? 
  1. What are the top-producing advisors (and firms) currently doing to win over new and existing clients with respect to personalization and the overall client experience?  
  1. How important is technology in creating personalized experiences and in helping advisors improve the relationships they have with their clients and family members? 
  1. Finally, what are some of the emerging trends you’re witnessing that will impact and influence the strategic decision-making process on how, where, or why firms invest in enhancing the digital client experience?  

Below are the answers our experts shared with us.

Teresa Leno

What comes to mind when you think of personalization and why is it so important or relevant for advisors? 

As a former financial advisor and now a FinTech marketer and MarTech software owner, when I hear the word “personalization,” I think of a few different things: 

First is the ability to personalize an advisor’s technology- using APIs to build out a platform of tools personalized to their needs. 

Second, personalization at the client level with access to their information, documentation, and investment information.  

From a MarTech perspective, personalize the marketing and the messaging from the advisor- from branding to what information they share with their clients and prospects and how they share it. Our software enables social sharing and personalized sharing through client-focused newsletters. 

Technology can deliver personalization at scale, and advisors need to embrace it! There is no better time than now for advisors to implement technology that provides personalized experiences for their clients. 

What are the top-producing advisors (and firms) currently doing to win over new and existing clients with respect to personalization and the overall client experience? 

I believe the top advisors have a handle on the personalization and client expectations because they’re utilizing the technologies that deliver. They are more likely to use SaaS platforms they choose versus outdated legacy technologies that often are ‘free’ or provided by their custodian.  These advisors know they can scale faster and more efficiently when technology can do the heavy lifting- more time with clients, less time on ‘tasks.’ 

How important is technology in creating personalized experiences and in helping advisors improve the relationships they have with their clients and family members? 

The great wealth transfer has already begun and technology that provides personalized experiences is playing a huge role. If advisors want to continue advisory relationships with the next generation, they will have to utilize technology with personalization features to maintain AUM, it’s that simple. 

Finally, what are some of the emerging trends you’re witnessing that will impact and influence the strategic decision-making process on how, where, or why firms invest in enhancing the digital client experience? 

I am seeing a lot more firms, namely large BDs, allowing advisors to make their own choices when it comes to certain technologies to make their practices more efficient. I can provide insight into this because my firm not only owns technology, but we have provided marketing services to some of the fastest scaling FInTech firms over the past few years. It’s been great to see how FinTech is constantly evolving and meeting the expectations of advisors, too. 

In the financial marketing industry, while there are ‘approved vendors,’ these same firms are allowing advisors to make their own choices too. There is less resistance and more openness because the advisor is ultimately the one developing the relationship and maintaining the AUM and therefore making technology and MarTech decisions that fit their business model. 

Tim Welsh of Nexus Strategy

What comes to mind when you think of personalization and why is it so important or relevant for advisors? 

Historically, portfolio management and financial planning have been aggregated at the model portfolio level with basically a handful of options for clients as advisors’ infrastructure limits them from creating bespoke portfolios for each and every client. They simply do not have the technology, expertise, and capacity to provide those, so clients get dropped into a few buckets.  That was ok in the past, however, with today’s hyper-personalized apps on their phones, they want more and are demanding more.  Look for direct indexing technology to provide personalized, tax-managed, and ESG-focused portfolios to be the answer here, particularly as the asset management industry is acquiring these capabilities en-masse.  Advisors will no longer be able to hide behind a 60-40 portfolio and must up their games to stay relevant in this new environment, particularly as the discounters and digital players are mass marketing personalized portfolios, e.g. Schwab is now offering those at $5,000 minimums. 

What are the top-producing advisors (and firms) currently doing to win over new and existing clients with respect to personalization and the overall client experience?  

Leading firms are taking advantage of the SEC’s new Marketing Rule that allows for advisors to use testimonials, endorsements, and reviews in their communications and promotions. Just like Yelp, Airbnb, and Uber/Lyft have transformed how consumers shop online, advisors can now showcase their clients’ experiences as social proof that they are providing a quality service offering. This will be the way financial advisors start to market themselves – but it is a race – the early adopters will win the lion’s share of new prospects through these methods. 

How important is technology in creating personalized experiences and in helping advisors improve the relationships they have with their clients and family members? 

As mentioned above, wealth management does not scale, so advisors have not been able to offer truly tailored investment advice, guidance, and portfolio implementation. The answer has to be in back-office technology that enables them to do so, e.g. direct indexing is the first place to start. 

Finally, what are some of the emerging trends you’re witnessing that will impact and influence the strategic decision-making process on how, where, or why firms invest in enhancing the digital client experience? 

Anything firms can do to bring capacity, scale and efficiencies into their operations will be critical for prioritization. Not only to generate additional income today, but also for their future business value tomorrow. 

Julie Littlechild of Absolute Engagement

What comes to mind when you think of personalization and why is it so important or relevant for advisors? 

I believe that personalization is a critical client experience trend although it means different things to different people. We can, for example, personalize the service plan so that we are delivering the number of reviews in the right format (in-person, virtual) based on the preferences of the clients.  Perhaps a more powerful application of personalization is in client communication (the conversation we have and the content we share) because it provides an opportunity to demonstrate real leadership. 

The shift we have witnessed is from ‘generic communications’ to ‘segmented communications’ (e.g., business owners or corporate executives or retirees) to ‘client-driven communications’ (e.g., connected to the individual needs of a client).  The first two require you to assume what clients and prospects care about but the latter is driven by direct input from clients. 

What are the top-producing advisors (and firms) currently doing to win over new and existing clients with respect to personalization and the overall client experience? 

The most progressive firms are capturing relevant data from their clients or using existing demographic data to share more personalized communications.  Rather than providing generic communications, they are sharing content that reflects what is most important to clients, their specific concerns or a specific event in their lives. 

Many firms have started to segment communications (e.g., business owners are more likely to care about this topic) but increasingly we’re focusing on how we do this by the client.  For example, we might capture real-time input about what Mary Smith is concerned about and trigger a meeting or an article on the topic.  The future of personalization, in my mind, is tied to the ability to respond in real-time to the needs of clients. 

How important is technology in creating personalized experiences and in helping advisors improve the relationships they have with their clients and family members? 

Technology is absolutely critical in facilitating a personalized experience.  As we think about driving the experience, conversations, and communications down to the client level (or even delivering on a segmented basis) we need a way to capture, analyze and respond to client needs.  That is a complex process but highlights one of the most interesting developments in that space and that is the ability to use technology to support an otherwise very human process. 

Finally, what are some of the emerging trends you’re witnessing that will impact and influence the strategic decision-making process on how, where, or why firms invest in enhancing the digital client experience? 

The trends our research is uncovering are really trends connected to client mindset.  How are they feeling?  What do they need?  What are they concerned about?  The data shows how fluid these things are and that was only exacerbated over the last several years.  As a result, we are seeing – and actively participating in – the emergence of engagement technologies that will allow advisors to be more responsive to the real-time needs of both prospects and clients.  And we are seeing more firms who are willing to co-create the experience with their clients to ensure they are delivering what is most important. 

Bill McGuire

What comes to mind when you think of personalization and why is it so important or relevant for advisors? 

It starts with a clear message. This is especially important for RIA firms and advisors because what they think is unique, like being independent or a fiduciary, is not and means little to most people receiving their communication. Working with a professional writer, with industry experience, can often be the best first step toward effective communication. 

What are the top-producing advisors (and firms) currently doing to win over new and existing clients with respect to personalization and the overall client experience? 

Creating a dialogue that speaks to a specific topic or need and making the communication a two-way collaborative process. Understanding the right tactic to best achieve your goals is important too. For example, podcasts can be great for establishing ‘thought leadership’ by allowing easy access and able to listen anywhere to learn more about you and your expertise in your field.  While webinars can allow you to create ‘lead generation’ through engagement; polling, surveys, Q&A, and screen-sharing interaction. 

How important is technology in creating personalized experiences and in helping advisors improve the relationships they have with their clients and family members? 

Technology and the data and reporting it provides allow you to learn and tailor communication over time. View all marketing and communications initiatives as “works in progress”—and because they are repeatable, you can make small adjustments on what worked, what didn’t, and how to do it better, which can go a long way in improving the personalized experience. 

Finally, what are some of the emerging trends you’re witnessing that will impact and influence the strategic decision-making process on how, where, or why firms invest in enhancing the digital client experience? 

Technology is only as good as the people using it. When deciding on a new marketing technology initiative (for example, updating the firm’s website), assign a staff member to become the project leader to become familiar with the features and benefits of the different website creation firms, content management systems (CMS), and hosting services. 

Brian Thorp of Wealthtender

What comes to mind when you think of personalization and why is it so important or relevant for advisors? 

Without a doubt, I believe the most significant driver of personalization in the industry is the acceleration of advisors choosing a clearly defined niche or specific areas of specialization that become the focus of their practice. In a post-COVID world, advisors and consumers alike realize they can work together no matter where either live. This means consumers hiring a financial advisor will increasingly determine who they want to work with based upon factors other than how close the advisor’s office is to their home. As more consumers learn about advisors who specialize in areas relevant to their unique needs, these advisors will experience faster growth and a powerful network effect as their clients become influential advocates with prospects they’re seeking to attract. 

What are the top-producing advisors (and firms) currently doing to win over new and existing clients with respect to personalization and the overall client experience? 

Continuing on the theme of building authority as a specialist, top advisors are winning over new clients through efforts that elevate their voice and online reputation in their areas of specialization. For example, David DeWitt, a financial advisor in Wayne, Pennsylvania, recently focused his practice on serving clients, like him, who have been diagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). David launched the ADHD Money Talk Podcast to reinforce his authority as a subject matter expert and connect more personally with his clients and prospects. Another example includes the team at Abundo Wealth and the travel advice services they offer clients as a natural extension of their own wanderlust. Just as traditional advisors who focus on a local market benefit by being active in their community, advisors specializing in a niche are finding creative ways to be visible among their clients and ideal prospects, often through activities they conduct online.  

How important is technology in creating personalized experiences and in helping advisors improve the relationships they have with their clients and family members? 

With more advisors working with clients across the country or even across borders, technology plays an integral role in delivering a personalized experience, whether through Zoom calls, electronic signatures, and secure storage and organization of important documents. For technology to truly enhance the advisor-client relationship, it’s important the solutions chosen are easy to use, well-resourced, and proven to reduce the likelihood of a bad experience, especially in critical areas like information security. 

Finally, what are some of the emerging trends you’re witnessing that will impact and influence the strategic decision-making process on how, where, or why firms invest in enhancing the digital client experience?   

Top advisors and firms no longer evaluate individual applications and technology services through a narrow lens and instead conduct due diligence to understand how these tools integrate with their tech stack. How well do applications talk to one another? How robust and secure are the methods for connecting applications? Are there multiple solutions offered under the umbrella of a single vendor that increases the likelihood of interoperability today and for the foreseeable future? Questions like these are becoming the norm when evaluating new technology tools and services. 

Corey Keating Marketing

What comes to mind when you think of personalization and why is it so important or relevant for advisors? 

When I hear personalization, I hear “brand.” The finance industry is a copycat league and the only chance most of us have at breaking through the overwhelming amount of noise is through the differentiation of brand. I’m not talking about corporate brand; I’m talking about our individual brands. What makes you, me, and each of us different than the other who’s representing the same product and/or service just from another company? Sure, maybe a variation of bells & whistles, but at the end of the day isn’t what most of us offering the same?  

The differences are found in our personalities, our brand, who we are, what we represent, and how we deliver it.  

What are the top-producing advisors (and firms) currently doing to win over new and existing clients with respect to personalization and the overall client experience? 

The FAs and firms that are gobbling up and will continue to gobble up market share are creating an increasing amount of consistent consumable content that tells their audience and current client base: Who they are, what they do, why they do it, how, and answering all of the common FAQ questions that the audience wants and needs to ask before they have a chance to ask. 

How important is technology in creating personalized experiences and in helping advisors improve the relationships they have with their clients and family members? 

Technology is important and necessary. However, I believe many have actually placed too much emphasis and resources on their tech which can easily create more of a headache for the business operators along with an increased distance from the end user.  

Finally, what are some of the emerging trends you’re witnessing that will impact and influence the strategic decision-making process on how, where, or why firms invest in enhancing the digital client experience? 

Regardless of what side of the business we’re discussing, wholesale and/or advisor, I would be head down focused on creating consumable digital content to be distributed uniquely on LinkedIn, YouTube, and email.  

Websites, gates, SEO & SEM, and automated email campaigns have been over-emphasized and relied on for far too long and have allowed for a massive void in every firm’s ability to tell their unique story through their unique people on the channels and platforms that we all as humans consume the content.  

“Corey, what would you do if brought in to help us gain more attention, deeper relationships, and ultimately more business for our firm?” 

Corey: I would simply create a new, siloed arm within the marketing department called the Consumable Content Department and we would start by highlighting and creating content around the firms’ most influential personalities. The team would be built from the outside in, meaning not bringing people over from the standard corporate marketing group, but rather hiring new outside employees: Creative director, videographer(s)/photographer(s), post-production editors, graphic designers, and writers. This team would execute and distribute content for LinkedIn, YouTube, some email marketing, and some featured on the firm’s website.  

The good news: There’s still a ridiculous opportunity for a handful of firms and advisors to take advantage and capitalize on this.  

The bad news: With every passing day the window and our opportunity to get this content in front of our intended audience close a little more as the organic reach of these platforms shrinks. 

Digital Client Experience Pendulum - FutureVault

The Pendulum Has Swung: The New “Norm”​ of Client Expectations is Here to Stay

As the younger generation begins to enter and embrace their prime earning years where they will join the ranks of the high-net-worth, they’re also bringing with them a new set of expectations.

A set of expectations that institutions and firms across financial services, and in particular wealth managers responsible for managing their financial life, must take seriously and pay very close attention to.

For institutions, firms, and financial services professionals everywhere, it all boils down to two key takeaways:

(1) First, is that clients expect products, services, and advice that is relevant and meaningful to THEM (seems obvious, doesn’t it?); and

(2) Second, digital capabilities are no longer a “nice-to-have”. Rather, digital capabilities have emerged as being core to the overall value proposition for today’s new generation of investors and high-net-worth clients. 

The second part is the glue to everything. And no, it isn’t new either.

The notion of embracing digital technologies to bring personalized experiences and elevate the digital client experience has been both discussed and evolving largely over the last several years. Seeing it play it and come to fruition, however, regardless of knowing about it, is catching some firms and their advisors off-guard.

Well, it’s evident that the pendulum (of client expectations and experiences) has officially swung… and is here to stay.

The Changing Dynamics

Consumer demands change and evolve rapidly, often as a result of emerging technology as well as the influence of personal and societal values.

This is no different in financial services, and in particular in wealth management, where decisions and outcomes are very personal to your clients. In fact, it’s that much more significant.

Banking, investing, and financial planning customers/clients crave relationships and long for being understood. Make no mistake about that.

This is why ensuring clients feel valued and are receiving great services, products, and advice that is relevant and personalized to them is fundamental to building long-term relationships with not only them in the immediate, but with family members for generations to come.

During a significant period in modern-day history where the largest movement of wealth is taking place in real-time to heirs, understanding and investing in delivering value to your clients and across the household cannot be stressed enough.

The Digital Client Experience needs to be prioritized across every single level of the organization. Plain and simple.

We’re seeing this play out in real-time.

Franklin Templeton’s recent survey in collaboration with Institutional Investor’s Custom Research Lab of more than 150 Registered Investment Advisors highlighted that 89% of RIAs agree that a high-quality, personalized digital client experience is an important competitive differentiator.

Insights Shared by Industry Experts

Our team recently connected with well-known industry experts to unpack how technology is impacting and influencing Personalization and the Digital Client Experience.

After speaking with each of the experts, it’s telling just how much of a role technology plays and will continue to play in shaping this new era of the client experience.

Julie Littlechild from Absolute Engagement shared this with us,

“Technology is absolutely critical in facilitating a personalized experience. As we think about driving the experience, conversations, and communications down to the client level (or even delivering on a segmented basis) we need a way to capture, analyze and respond to client needs. That is a complex process but highlights one of the most interesting developments in that space and that is the ability to use technology to support an otherwise very human process.” 

Teresa Leno of FreshFinance chimed in with the following,

“The great wealth transfer has already begun and technology that provides personalized experiences is playing a huge role. If advisors want to continue advisory relationships with the next generation, they will have to utilize technology with personalization features to maintain AUM, it’s that simple.”

If you’re interested, you can read what other experts had to say on this topic here in a recent edition of The WealthTech Experience.

The Topic(s) in Every Boardroom

Personalization and the Digital Client Experience have become the largest topics of discussion in nearly every boardroom and these two themes certainly have certainly emerged as the highlight of every conference, summit, and event in the last 12-18 months.

Our team recently exhibited at the Schwab Advisor Services’ annual IMPACT conference where there were roughly 5,000 live attendees (with many more tuning in virtually).

During the opening ceremony and remarks, Bernie Clark and Walt Bettinger signaled just how significant personalization is and how this “theme” is central to everything in modern-day wealth management. Bettinger even called and compared the theme or personalization to a freight train for Advisors. Meaning this shift in consumer behavior and new client expectations are coming at Advisor faster than many may realize and acknowledge.

And that’s certainly true, it all starts and ends with the client.

Their needs, expectations, and importantly, the experience they have with the professionals, firms, and institutions responsible for managing their financial lives.

Those that invest in delivering value by creating personalized experiences and elevating the digital client experience will be the ones that reap benefits for generations to come.  

This new era of managing client expectations and delivering an elevated digital client experience is not only here to stay, it’s a new form of a digital moat that separates high-performing firms from the rest.

Which side of this digital moat will you be on?

The above is something all decision-makers everywhere must absolutely pay close attention to and consider as their organizations work on mapping out core strategic activities for the following years to come. 

Franklin Templeton Research Report Findings - Unpacking the Future of the Digital Client Experience

Findings from Franklin Templeton’s FinTech Report: Elevating The Digital Client Experience

Amid a massive generational transfer of wealth and the continued rise in the adoption of wealth technologies, RIA firms have a real opportunity to deploy information technology in meaningful ways that will help them acquire ideal clients, retain clients more efficiently, and importantly, extend their value proposition to clients and family members.

In Franklin Templeton’s recent survey through collaboration with Institutional Investor’s Custom Research Lab, more than 150 RIAs provided rich insight that supports and highlights enthusiasm for the adoption of new wealth technology among investment advisors.

The four statistics below summarize and represent major findings published within the report which are very telling of where the future state of modern wealth management is headed. Below each of the statistical findings, we’ve provided context and information regarding how and where FutureVault fits into the overall technology value proposition and how our platform supports the growth of the modern firm and advisory practice.

FINDING #1

89% of RIAs agree that a high-quality digital client experience is an important competitive differentiator.

This one hits home and for good reason. Here at FutureVault, we’re paving the way for what we strongly believe to be a significant component of the overall client value proposition and the future of digital client experiences; Personal Life Management.

The Personal Life Management Vault™ provides firms and advisors with a massive competitive advantage by enhancing the advisor-client relationship and delivering an elevated digital client experience that builds trust and loyalty. Personal Life Management Vaults provide an efficient way to retain clients and create stickiness across households by providing value that extends well beyond the confines of a typical advisor-client relationship and across generations.

It all starts and ends with clients. The firms and advisors that can provide value and client-centric service to clients and their family members will reap the benefits for generations to come.

FINDING #2

79% of RIAs agree that their firm’s digital infrastructure is increasingly important in hiring and retaining first-rate professional talent.

We continue to witness first-hand how the implementation of best-in-class technology is an increasingly effective way for institutions and firms to attract and retain top talent.

FutureVault’s modern, client-centric, open API platform provides firms (and advisors) with a digital infrastructure that ultimately results in capacity and efficiency gains in their practice and significant value being added to clients’ personal lives. Ultimately, what we’re seeing is that when advisors are equipped with the right technology and tools to support their workflow and ability to scale, it gives them a good reason to stick around.

FINDING #3

71% of RIAs plan to make a moderate or aggressive investment in client onboarding and account holdings data management technology over the next two years.

Onboarding new clients is an enormous undertaking and represents one of the first opportunities for firms and advisors to demonstrate and provide value to their clients.

This is precisely why creating a seamlessly integrated onboarding process that reduces friction for your clients, that automates the delivery of key information, and that provides access to any critical documentation is table stakes. Good onboarding is all about making it as easy as possible for your clients to do business and continue doing business with your firm.

Our custom checklist workflows, integrated experiences with onboarding and KYC solutions like Mako, and seamless e-signature workflows (such as our DocuSign integration) provide a smooth, efficient, and enjoyable onboarding experience that results in a win-win-win for all stakeholders involved.

FINDING #4

85% of RIAs see a critical or moderate need for technology to improve day-to-day client service activities and communication. 

Our purpose-built document exchange and digital vault solutions equip the modern advisor to ditch insecure and inefficient methods that include sending, sharing, and receiving documents in the onslaught of back-and-forth email threads. Not only does this include eliminating the back-and-forth interactions with clients, but also with trusted advisors and third-party planning professionals, where this type of activity can now be centralized within the client’s Personal Life Management Vault™ as a way of streamlining the document workflow with such third parties in a secure and compliant location.

Integrations and automation further streamline productivity by automatically carrying out critical document distribution tasks that often take place manually.

Our advanced features and integrated functionality eliminate any concerns over the flaws and inefficiencies with traditional document management so that more of the advisor’s professional time can be spent where it matters most; providing value to clients.

Three Areas Broker-Dealers and RIAs Need to Focus On

3 Critical Areas Broker-Dealers and RIAs Must Focus On

The financial services (and wealth management) industry is in the middle of a digital revolution. When you look at where the industry stood even just five years ago, with respect to technology, there’s a stark difference.

This eminent shift and acceleration towards a full-blown digital era come with heaps of opportunity and challenges alike; meaning firms and institutions must re-evaluate the strategic areas of focus that will have critical implications on business outcomes.

Through conversation with several dozen firms—including Broker-Dealers and advisory firms/RIAs—on where they’re investing their time and money, and it’s evident there are three fundamental areas firms have their eyes set on and where technology is driving real impact.

The first area is enhancing the advisor-client experience.

Here’s what we know to be true…

Investor/client demands continue to evolve, and clients value relationships with their financial advisor (and the firm) where they feel they are understood and taken care of. Ensuring clients remain on the receiving end of value is essential to building relationships that span across family members and generations; taking the meaning of long-term relationships to an entirely new level.

To top it off, personalization has emerged as a major topical focus area for financial advisors in making sure that the service, advice, and value clients receive are not only catered to them but that it’s relevant to them and their needs.

Several studies, including from firms such as Accenture, claim that anywhere from 60-80% of consumers view the relationships they have with their financial service institutions as largely transactional.

The takeaway? There is plenty of room for institutions—both big and small—and advisors everywhere to do better.

Enhancing the advisor-client experience is ultimately driven by the impetus to make it easier for your clients to do business with your firm and your advisors.

A great client experience leads to trust—and trust, as we all know, is the ultimate currency.

While technology alone can not solve for improving the advisor-client experience, it can certainly provide the much-needed capacity and ability to take it to the next level.

Here’s how technology can help improve the advisor-client experience…

Innovation and advancements in the WealthTech ‘arena’ have come a very long way over the last few years and solutions, across all categories, enabling firms and the advisors that represent them, to gain capacity and efficiencies that allow them to better serve clients and meet their list of growing demands.

From capturing and documenting relevant data (via CRMs), communicating to clients(via content), delivering personalized solutions/products (via PMS and Planning Software), and improving the accessibility to information and documents (via a secure digital vault), technology can facilitate a winning client experience.

The second area is improving back office and compliance efficiencies.

With data breaches becoming more prevalent, both consumer and corporate concerns for data privacy and integrity have skyrocketed, resulting in ever-changing, more restrictive, compliance requirements and policies that form soon after.

As regulation continues to escalate, organizations are often required to spend a large part of their budgets on meeting strict compliance standards.

Building systems and processes that keep up with regulations and industry standards require resources on every level. Overcoming regulatory compliance challenges requires financial firms to foster a culture of compliance within the organization. Companies need to constantly evaluate and improve their operations to keep up with fast-changing consumer expectations, technology, and industry regulations.

While compliance teams bare the weight of ensuring compliance is adhered to across the organization, it’s important to stress that compliance is everyone’s responsibility.

Here’s how technology can help improve back office and compliance efficiencies…

Technology standardizes processes, ensures procedures are followed correctly, and enables firms to keep up with policy changes. Technology confidently enables back-office and compliance teams to streamline regulatory reporting and audit prep cycles along with ensuring corporate and client information are kept safe, secure, and accessible at all times as key pieces of required evidence and to meet document retention policy requirements.

Last but not least, the third area of focus is around creating a connected workflow.

Traditionally speaking, much of the emphasis has been around enabling advisor workflow to accommodate the needs of financial advisors and wealth managers — but this often ignores critical dependencies and even creates inefficiencies in certain areas, and across the different levels or teams within an organization.

When firms look for ways to streamline workflow and experience across front, middle, and back office functions, not only can these significantly reduce overhead costs, but it creates a massive competitive advantage in the sense that all fronts of the business are moving forward, together, and at the same pace.

This really boils down to creating a deeply embedded and integrated experience that moves away from data silos, and risks of human error via repetitive tasks, ensuring all constituents benefit from having access to information when and where they need it.

Here’s how technology can create a connected workflow across the organization…

By leveraging a best-of-breed ecosystem of solutions with deep or bi-directional integrations, in addition to APIs, technology affords firms the ability to connect the disconnected elements of their workflow (and their business) that materially improves internal processes, saving significant time and money across the board.

For Broker-Dealers and even large RIAs that offer their advisory groups/teams a technology platform or allow them to BTOT (bring-their-own-technology), it’s important to understand the implications in front of you, especially as you set your eyes on digital transformation initiatives to build a better business and scale.

Document Retention Policy 101 - How to Meet Document Retention Policy Requirements with FutureVault

Document Retention 101: How to Meet Document Retention Policy Requirements

How, where, when, and for how long your firm stores confidential corporate, employee, and client documents is not only an area of concern for organizational policies, it’s a critical compliance requirement that all financial services organizations and their employees must follow. Whether it’s new account opening documentation, AML/KYC, account statements, advisor commission statements, etc., you name it, having a secure, accessible, and structured record of confidential information via a document retention policy isn’t just useful—it’s the law.

While adhering to compliance and document retention policy requirements often comes with technical challenges along with the cost of creating, distributing, storing, and destroying confidential documents, failing to follow document retention policy requirements comes with a much more costly price tag. Following the guidance set out by regulatory bodies as a means of buttoning up your document retention policy and avoiding steep penalties pays its dividends.

So how exactly can your firm ensure you’re maintaining confidential records and adhering to—or better yet, exceeding— document retention compliance requirements?

Fortunately, technology solution providers like FutureVault’s secure Digital Vault platform provide firms and advisors with the solutions and confidence to stay ahead of the curve.

What is Document Retention?

Document retention, also referred to as records retention, is the method and practice of storing, maintaining, and archiving important and confidential information over a required period of time. Whether it’s administrative paperwork, financial performance reports, new client agreement forms, and onboarding documentation, confidential information processed across your front, middle, and back offices every day must be stored in an accessible and secure location.

Documents (records) are essentially considered evidence of decisions, transactions, or critical actions that take place, and as such should be kept as long as required—or for as short a period as necessary–by regulatory, legal, or business governance.

While organizations may put forth their own set of document retention and record retention policies (for example, keeping client records for a period of 5 years), in the case of financial services organizations and other highly regulated industries, there will almost always be a legal and regulatory requirement to maintain, manage, and archive information for a designated period of time. Regardless of what that time period looks like, it’s important you are able to access information, organize it, and keep it safe—the exact reason why having a document management system is so important.

💡 Note: Whether your organization has made the move to completely digital processes or you’re still relying heavily on paper-driven processes and paper archives, you will need to keep track of how long these files need to be kept, access older information when you need it, and know that confidential information is kept safe and secure.

5 Stages of Document and Records Retention

The following diagram provides an overview of the critical document retention “stages” that all firms and financial advisors are required to follow to ensure compliance is being met.

5 Sages of Records and Document Retention

Why is Document Retention Important?

Document retention is important for several notable and significant reasons.

First, document retention plays a significant role for your organization and staff from a process point of view as it relates to records maintenance. Establishing a good document retention policy and framework across front, middle, and back offices ensure that everyone is operating under the same guidelines and adhering to the same internal processes around documentation.

In your day-to-day business operations, having immediate access to files when you need them, archiving old files (so your system doesn’t get cluttered), and removing outdated customer information keeps your firm from making costly mistakes, lower the chances for human error, and ultimately drives productivity where it matters. 

Second, it’s also important for compliance and legal reasons. In the United States, Canada, the UK, and other places across the world, document retention requirements exist for financial record keeping under anti-money laundering legislation and terrorist financing regulations; as a financial services organization, credit union, or money lender, you have a responsibility to work with the government to prevent these types of crimes—and this means being able to evidence and access documents whenever you need them.

Last but not least, document retention is important for privacy reasons, too. Although storing financial information is a legal requirement, keeping sensitive customer data on hand is also a security concern: having confidential files in your office puts you at risk for would-be hackers or data breaches, and keeping files on after the storage requirements are fulfilled can open you up to additional legal risks. Having the right platform in place to solve your document retention requirements keeps your client’s confidential information and data safe, secure, and worry-free.

It’s important to note that independent advisory firms and financial advisors operating under and within a larger umbrella organization are still required to follow document retention requirements—document retention is not just an obligation for larger organizations or tied to head office management.

Document Retention Policies & Regulatory Compliance Requirements

Adhering to document retention policy requirements can be difficult, especially for smaller independent advisory firms and financial advisors. Without the staffing and/or technology resources of a large firm, it can be challenging to keep track of what files are being stored where, for how long, and when they can be removed. Failing to do so correctly can have consequences for both you and your company, and not knowing the requirements can turn an information request or an audit into a major headache.

Penalties for noncompliance with document and record-keeping can range from a reprimand to a suspension, a large fine (to a maximum of $5 million in some scenarios), and even expulsion from the membership body itself.

In North America, the financial services industry is regulated by several governing bodies, including the ones below along with their document retention compliance requirements.

IIROC Document Retention Policy

The Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) is a not-for-profit that sets rules and oversees the activity of investment dealers and trading in Canada. IIROC stipulates that records (which are defined as books, records, client files, information, and other documentation related to your business) should be retained in a safe location in a “durable and accessible form” for a minimum of seven (7) years unless other requirements (either by the IIROC or by other governing bodies) state otherwise.

FINRA Document Retention Policy

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) is IIROC’s counterpart in the United States. Like IIROC, FINRA is a non-governmental agency; as part of its general record-keeping and document retention requirements, FINRA’s Rule 4511 and Rule 17a-4 require a 6-year retention period for records. FINRA is often the first step before reporting infractions to the SEC.

💡Did you know that FutureVault’s secure digital vault and document exchange platform meets FINRA Rule 4511 and the SEC Rule 17a-4 document retention requirements for Broker-Dealers and RIAs? Contact our team today to learn more.

SEC Document Retention Policy:

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is a US organization given jurisdiction to regulate financial activities across all public securities markets and the financial reporting of public companies. Whether you’re a Broker-Dealer or provide financial advisory services, you could come under the SEC’s umbrella, so it’s important to make sure your office is fully compliant. Like the IIROC, the SEC’s document retention policy covers a seven (7) year term.

Following this guidance not only protects your organization from fines and costly mistakes, but it also streamlines audit requirements, freedom of information requests, or requests from government agencies—all of which could be stressful, if your documents and records are not organized, stored, and secured accessibly.

FutureVault Demo

What Does Successful Document and Records Management Look Like?

Successful document and records management systems should be easy for your firm and its designated administrators to access, secure enough to protect your client’s information, and intuitive for your workflow and day-to-day needs. We recommend reviewing and considering the following:

➜ Customizable security, access, and permissions: not every employee should be able to access every file across the many different functions, departments, and offices. Document access should be configured based on specific employees’ needs to know, allowing only designated users to access certain data.

➜ Easy document retrieval & storage: designated users should be able to access documents and other records immediately; data should be centralized (whether physically in your offices or on a cloud system), easy to maintain, and easy to share, be it on your own system for employees or through a public portal for your clients.

➜ Audit support: being able to find documents to support your audit is a necessary requirement, but being able to find them quickly and easily can also save you money. Having a system that supports the auditing process can cut down on auditor hours and lower your fees.

➜ Built-in automation: a good system will be able to track and maintain your records automatically over their life cycle, from origination to access, storage, archival, and classification.

The best decision your firm can make when it comes to any document retention policy is moving forward with a system you don’t have to think about. At the end of the day, the best tool for your organization is one that’s both easy to use and reliable for you, your administrators, your advisors, and your clients.

The best and most certain way to meet and exceed document retention compliance requirements is to integrate technology into your back and front office processes. Platforms, namely FutureVault’s Digital Vault, can save your organization considerable time and money by ensuring compliance requirements are embedded and integrated into your everyday workflow and processes. Essentially becoming second nature so that you don’t have to spend any additional time worrying.

Here’s how FutureVault is successfully helping institutions, firms, and advisors successfully meet document retention policies along with other compliance requirements.

1.   Our ‘DR⁴’ Framework

‘DR4’ (Data Residency, Document Retention, Disaster Recovery, Data Redundancy) is an information security and compliance framework our platform offers that enables firms and service professionals to exceed security standards and regulatory requirements. This framework is all about preserving the security and integrity of confidential information and documents.

Here’s a little bit more about each item below.

Data Residency: FutureVault ensures your data is encrypted and backed up in different regions, ensuring your data residency requirements are met.

Document Retention: FutureVault maintains historic copies of your data and your clients’ data to follow your own compliance framework.

Disaster Recovery: FutureVault’s backup and disaster recovery plan meet stringent requirements to prevent data loss and service interruption.

Data Redundancy: In addition to constant backups, documents are replicated and converted into PDFs once ingested into the platform, with the original document being maintained.

FutureVault’s proprietary DR⁴ Framework is an information security and compliance framework put in place to effectively govern and protect corporate and client data.

2.   Security and Compliance Certifications

FutureVault is PCI DSS and SOC 2 Type II compliant as well as adhering to CIS standards—with these certifications, FutureVault is able to demonstrate and evidence that our internal protocols and risk frameworks meet security and compliance requirements, providing your firm with assurance and the confidence you need to know that your confidential employee and client information is kept safe and secure.

3.   Robust Security and Compliance Features

In addition to the above, FutureVault’s platform was purposely built to streamline secure document exchanges and document storage, essentially meaning our platform comes equipped with a robust feature set to address compliance and operational-related challenges. Below is a list of a few significant features:

➜ Fiduciary audit trail to confidently track and log all user interactions and activity taking place within Vaults for transparency, accountability, and peace of mind.

➜ Trusted Advisor permissioning model, which happens to be a patented feature, enables FutureVault users (across all levels) to grant collaborative access to third parties and Trusted Advisors.

➜ Bulk Download capabilities to securely export confidential and important corporate, employee, and client information at once for safe record-keeping or to fulfill audit requests.

➜ eSignature integrated workflows to automatically create user Vaults, in addition, to automatically (and securely) depositing signed documents within Vaults reducing back-and-forth exchanges, while improving retention and accessibility. Importantly, our automated eSignature workflows automatically route and file signed documents in the correct file location they need to be stored, saving significant time, money, and compliance headaches.

➜ Secure Inbound-Only Email Ingestion that allows Vault users and their Trusted Advisors to email confidential documents directly into a secured location within the Vault, avoiding unnecessary and insecure back-and-forth email exchanges.

➜ Multi-tiered access capabilities allow institutions and firms to improve information governance and accessibility by managing back, middle, and front office documents, including client documents, within one secured environment, all with different levels of access and views.

4.   Digitization Capabilities

Last, but certainly not least, FutureVault affords institutions, firms, and advisors with the ability to take physical paper directly out of the office (safe from misfiling, fires, water damages, etc.) and ‘store’ critical information assets directly on the cloud via bulk uploads and secure transfers to convert paper archives, including historical corporate records, into digital copies where they remain secured as “evidence” for internal use as well as for external organizations such as regulatory agencies and third-party auditors.

Moving Forward with Your Document Retention Policy Requirements

From Independent Broker-Dealers and advisory firms/RIAs to Credit Unions, Banks, and Family Offices, every type of financial services organization remains responsible for following and adhering to both internal and regulatory document retention policy requirements.

Fortunately, technology solution providers like FutureVault’s secure Digital Vault platform provide firms and advisors with the solutions and confidence to stay ahead of the curve in order to meet document retention policies along with other critical compliance and data security requirements.

Digital Vaults Have Materially Evolved - Operational and Compliance Efficiencies for Front and Back Office Teams

7 Value-Differentiators Multi-Tiered Digital Vaults Can Offer Your Firm and Advisors

Digital Vaults have not only become increasingly popular; they’re table stakes for modern institutions and firms all thanks to their document management efficacy and the security they offer.

At their core, Digital Vaults enable firms to securely store and organize documents containing confidential corporate and client information.

For Digital Vaults built as a feature or an “add-on”, that’s exactly where the functionality and use cases both start and end—document management with an additional layer of security built in.

However, Digital Vaults built as a platform have materially evolved into must-have compliance and operations tools—so how might this impact your organization? For starters, it means there’s a good chance the Digital Vault your organization is currently using, if any at all, isn’t providing you with benefits or value beyond simple document storage. Plain and simple. This means you’re more than likely leaving time savings, money, and opportunity on the table.

Your Digital Vault should be helping your organization scale and improve productivity across all levels of the organization.  

This is exactly where Multi-Tier Digital Vault solutions like FutureVault stand out from the crowd—all constituents involved—front, middle, and back-office teams, along with clients and households, gain tremendous value.

Continue reading below to learn seven (7) of the many value-differentiated benefits that Multi-Tiered Digital Vaults can provide your organization.

You can also learn about all things Digital Vaults here: Digital Vaults 101 – What is a Digital Vault?

Purposely built for multiple levels of your organization and multiple stakeholders

In our words, this is exactly what we are referring to when we describe multi-tiering.

It’s a game-changer in how firms are defining the way information assets and documents are managed across the many levels of their organization.

Each level and each role within distinct levels have a specific set of permissions and features that they can utilize to help streamline daily workflows, saving significant time and improving productivity.

Imagine the power and structure this affords your organization—from your back-office to front office advisors, relationship managers, office managers, to your clients, their network, and their families—everyone has a unique “role” and plays by their own set of rules within the Vault.

The concept of multi-tiering moves away from a one-way, inefficient, rigid document “feed” to a secure, collaborative, flexible, multi-way document exchange platform.

The question you should be asking yourself is this; does your Digital Vault provide this level of flexibility, structure, and connectivity?

Secure access to back office, front office, and client documents in one convenient location

Having centralized governance of information assets and documents ensures compliance and document management efficiency at scale across your firm—a direct result of multi-tiering.

From both a compliance and operational lens, having every piece of information accessible within one secure environment addresses several workflow challenges.

Importantly, securing your information assets within one location provides compliance teams with “evidence” that policies (such as your document retention policy) and procedures are adhered to across the entire organization and that all documents are “discoverable” for internal or external audits.

By consolidating multi-source document access into one single, centralized “Golden Source”, your entire organization will reap the benefits.

Does your Digital Vault provide you with access to all back office, front office, and client documents within one secure, centralized, convenient location?

Eliminate insecure, noncompliant, and inefficient ways of sharing and collecting information

Slow, insecure, and non-compliant—despite these three concerns, far too many firms and advisors rely on email as their primary method to distribute and receive sensitive corporate and client information.

The problem is exacerbated by legacy systems that make it easy for physical paper to find its way into internal and external processes—from new client onboarding and account transfers to training materials and policies.

Email and physical paper are not just a major cause for concern when it comes to cybersecurity and compliance, they’re inefficiencies might just be preventing your firm from scaling.

If your Digital Vault is nothing more than a “dumping ground” for corporate and client documents, then we caution you to pump the brakes. Your Digital Vault should enable your firm to move away from insecure, noncompliant, inefficient legacy systems and processes to secure, compliant, and efficient processes that can be standardized and scaled.

Here are a few, of many, ways a multi-tiered Digital Vault like FutureVault’s platform streamlines the ability to distribute and receive documents instantaneously across all levels of your organization.

Global Folders

Allow teams to populate, replace, and update documents within folders that are universally available across your organization and with clients.

Document Distribution

An easy, effective, and secure way to share resources and materials on a 1-to-1, 1-to-many, or even many-to-1 basis in real-time.

Custom Document Checklists

Streamline existing information and document gathering processes to significantly improve the way documents and information are collected and stored from internal and external sources.

How secure and efficient are your document exchange workflows?

Streamline audit readiness cycles and resources

Digital Vaults completely transform audit readiness cycles by reducing the time, effort, and resources required to prepare for and execute an audit.

This is a direct result of establishing a secure centralized repository where information assets and documents are readily available and discoverable.

With FutureVault, additional enriched features such as the ability to tag documents along with Optical Character Recognition (OCR), streamline searching for and locating specific documents.

What if you could eliminate the time-consuming back and forth audit requests for “evidence”? Well, there’s good news—you can.

In particular, FutureVault’s patented permissioning technology enables compliance teams to provide regulators and third-party auditors with direct access to their centralized repository. For auditors, this provides them with secure access to the necessary and required information needed to perform an audit—a win-win for everyone involved. Auditors also gain access to a Fiduciary Audit Trail, showing them a detailed history of all activities that take place in the Vault down to a specific document.

How comfortable and confident are you with your current audit preparation processes and the average time it takes to complete an audit?

Securely manage documents, including client statements, in bulk

If your firm is spending countless hours and resources dedicated to managing the mass number of documents, files, and client statements, just know that you’re not alone.

Managing all sorts of documents from client statements to historical corporate documents is a necessary evil from an operations and compliance lens. Unfortunately, the current methods being utilized are inefficient and result in firms not only spending far too much time managing documents but requiring them to hire roles to backfill document management capabilities.  

Having a solution to help your organization manage critical data and documents in bulk isn’t just a nice tool to have, it’s an absolute must-have from a productivity and profit perspective.

Bulk upload

Save days, if not weeks of work, by automatically delivering statements to clients and advisors in bulk. When you spend less time sending statements to your clients, you can spend more time with your clients.


Bulk download

Quickly and easily download all corporate, advisor, and client documents within Vaults for safe record-keeping to manage compliance requirements and fulfill audit needs in just one simple click.

Streamline and automate new client onboarding processes

Streamlining the paperwork involved in new client processing benefits everyone—your back office, your advisors, and importantly, your clients.

The typical workflow of new client onboarding and processing involves several back-and-forth document exchanges, manually creating new accounts, and manually depositing documents on a one-by-one basis.   

FutureVault’s integrated eSignature workflow enables advisors to automatically create new client Vault accounts the moment a new client agreement form is signed, while also automatically depositing eSigned documents directly into the correct folder within a Vault account—making it instantaneously accessible for clients, advisors, and back office.

This alone saves several hours of the manual administrative work involved with new client processing. Not only does this provide time and cost savings, it also helps firms meet document retention requirements by ensuring client onboarding documents remain evidenced and accessible.

Additionally, advisors and front office admins, often spend additional hours providing new clients with sufficient materials and resources as part of the onboarding experience. Global Folders, mentioned above, make it easy for firms and advisors to standardize this part of the onboarding flow by pre-populating new client Vaults with additional materials and resources that show your clients you have their best interest in mind.

Make it easy for clients to securely manage their personal documents

A secure Digital Vault like FutureVault allows individual end-users, your clients, have their own Vault accounts where they can better manage, access, and safeguard their most personal information and documents such as eye-glass prescriptions, family health records, legal documents, estate plans and wills, accounting and tax information, real estate and rental documents like tenant screening information, and of course their financial documents, naturally through their relationship with your firm.

In addition to simply storing documents, client Vaults have the inherent capability of making the information within the Vault accessible from anywhere, anytime. Imagine the power this affords your clients—they can easily get a copy of their passport during your business trip, details about their health insurance while they are on vacation, or information about their bank account and legal matters, all with a few simple clicks.

Clients can easily set reminders for documents with expiry or renewal dates – think driver’s licenses, insurance policies, mortgage agreements, you name it.

Taking it a step further, FutureVault can be utilized as a personal CRM for individuals by allowing them to create and associate contacts to different documents and pieces of information within their Vault. Insurance policy? Create and associate a contact for who was involved during that process. Eyeglass prescription? Create and associate a contact for who was involved. Kitchen renovations? Create and associate a contact who was involved at all stages of the renovation. 

Your clients can have this level of structure, organization, and peace of mind all thanks to you providing them with a branded Vault, making for a smooth and seamless experience that extends beyond the immediate financial management relationship. As a result, the personal connection with your firm increases exponentially.

Does your Digital Vault enable your clients to better manage their personal lives outside of your relationship? Probably not, but it can.

Establish your competitive edge by improving compliance and operational efficiencies with FutureVault

Digital Vaults are evolving into more than a document storage interface—they’re becoming operations and compliance tools that can help financial service organizations scale and improve productivity.

If your Digital Vault does not offer your back office, front office, or your clients the material benefits listed above, then it’s time to re-evaluate the way you’re using it or the solution you’re using.

There is no time like the present to power your back, middle, and front office teams with a Digital Vault to drastically improve compliance, drive operational efficiencies, and win the hearts, minds, and wallets of your clients.

In the words of FutureVault’s trusted partners and clients; not all Digital Vaults are created equally.

How Digital Vaults Protect The Aging Population - FutureVault

How Digital Vaults Can Protect the Aging Population—And Their Money

For most people, entering retirement is a dream come true. How could it not be? There’s ample time to travel, spend time with family, and you don’t have to worry too heavily about your financial stability. However, as more and more members of the baby boomer generation hit their retirement years, a new problem begins to emerge.

The issue at hand? Dementia. With the population aging, the number of sufferers is projected to rise by 40% to 78 million by 2030.

Financial advisors are beginning to feel the stress of whether or not their aging clients are showing early signs of the psychological disorder. To better gauge whether or not their clients in fact are, advisors need to be looking for signs of dementia in older clients, such as repeating themselves or not grasping what they’re being told. However, many feel overwhelmed and unqualified to spot the warning signs—even though they often suspect problems well before the client’s own family does.

So how are financial institutions and their advisors tackling this growing problem in a proactive way?

Current advisor solutions are reactive

The truth of the matter is this—Firms and advisors everywhere are scrambling to find a solution to this growing and soon-to-be prevalent problem. With the fiduciary responsibilities held by financial advisory professionals, the current, reactive solutions simply won’t cut it anymore.

One often-used strategy is to quiz clients with questionable mental capacities on information and matters already on their files, such as being able to clearly name their power of attorney (POA), lawyer, accountant, or even providing information about their spouse. 

“The problem with testing memory is that unless you know what the answer should be, it’s difficult to know whether there’s a memory loss issue,” says Greg MacIntosh, Vice-President of Wild Rose Group of Cos. “Sometimes, it could be temporary because of a medication and sometimes it can be part of a more progressive problem.”

Another route is to involve family members first, but in some cases, clients may be estranged from their families. In others, family members may be part of the problem as relatives try to dip into the clients’ accounts.

Additionally, unless advisors have spent a considerable amount of time face-to-face with their clients, short interactions and check-ins won’t prove to be a true barometer for noticing any psychological or cognitive impairments.

None of the current solutions seem to be sustainable or even effective in the long run—so how can the older population ensure their accounts and their estates remain safe?

Enter the Canadian Securities Administrators

There are nearly 10 million new cases worldwide of dementia every year, and an estimated 6.2 million Americans age 65 and older living with it in 2021. It’s no wonder that clients with dementia and the issues that come with them are growing faster than advisors can or are able to deal with. Thankfully, in Canada, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) have stepped in.

In July of 2021, the CSA introduced new guidelines that now require registrants to take reasonable steps to obtain the name and contact information of a Trusted Contact Person (TCP). This TCP would be someone advisors could alert if they have concerns about a client’s ability to make financial decisions or suspect their client is being exploited. This TCP would help advisors protect a client’s financial interests and assets. It’s important to note that a Trusted Contact Person does not have the authority to make transactions on a client in question’s account.

Advocis—the oldest and largest voluntary professional membership association for financial advisors—has urged its members to take the initiative to put a TCP in place. However, the client is under absolutely no obligation to provide one. Ultimately, advisors can defer matters to whoever has been appointed as POA, who does have the authority to manage someone’s accounts if a medical doctor has determined that they’re unable to due to mental or physical reasons. However, clients are also under no obligation to appoint a POA either.

Greg Pollock, President and Chief Executive of Advocis, recently told The Globe and Mail, “you have to put these things in place when the client is of clear mind. Once something has occurred where that’s not the case, it’s really too late.”

Still, even with these guidelines in place, it feels as though neither clients nor advisors are adequately protected. However, there is a solution that can provide the protection both parties are looking for.

Managing critical information with a Digital Vault provides protection for advisors and clients

As we continue to power forward into a digital age, technology can provide the tools needed to address these issues upfront. Digital Vault solutions provide an adequate solution for just that.

First and foremost, most Digital Vaults offer advisors and their clients a way to securely deliver, store, and manage important documents, files, and critical information. With world-class security and compliance as a core competency, advisors and firms can gain confidence knowing that their sensitive information is kept safe and secure.

Second, Digital Vaults allow clients to have complete control over who gets access to each of their accounts, and when. As an example, FutureVault’s patented Trusted Advisor permissioning provides family members and other third-party service professionals with access to specific information if granted permission. This, in turn, streamlines necessary processes in a transparent and compliant way as clients can delegate the management of certain files to selected advisors, all being tracked securely within the Vault.

Lastly, Vault platforms allow firms to create standardized templates and checklists as a way to streamline the process around information and document collection at various stages in the advisor-client relationship, including initial onboarding. This makes it incredibly easy and efficient to collect information, including being able to indicate and name a Trusted Contact Person almost immediately.

Moving forward with FutureVault to protect important information

FutureVault’s Digital Vault Platform is equipped with the right tools and features to help advisors connect with their aging clients and streamline the way they collect and manage information assets. By providing both families (clients) and advisors with secure Digital Vaults, we’re empowering firms to significantly improve operational efficiencies, get ahead of compliance and audit obligations, and ultimately, enhance the level of service offering by being able to focus on what matters most, clients.  

Five High Impact Areas of Wealth Management - FutureVault

5 High Impact Areas of WealthTech Influencing Institutions, Firms, and Advisors

Five high-impact areas within wealth management will have a significant influence on financial institutions and the firms that support them.

In the span of just a few short years, the wealth management industry has undergone significant transformative change, making those few short years feel like a decade, if not longer.

The good, the bad, the ugly—the industry has certainly seen it all during these past few years.

As an organization (FutureVault, of course) that sits close to where innovation, technologies, and trends take shape, we’re fortunate to have a very unique position and perspective on what’s emerging behind the scenes and ultimately driving real impact for institutions, firms, advisors, and importantly, the clients they serve.

Over the last twelve months, give or take, we’ve seen many themes persist and rise to the surface as common areas of where progress and impact result from. In fact, during a recent webinar that our team co-hosted, Jean Sullivan (Head of Wealth Management at Celent) shared insights from her own perspective and from what Celent has identified as some of the key, high-impact areas that are influencing strategic decision making for firms and their advisors—all of which aligned with the same themes our team has been witnessing and continues to witness. To say the least, it paints a clear picture of the areas firms and advisors need to focusing on.

Now let’s get right to it — here are the 5 high-impact areas within wealth management that are driving material impact and influencing strategic decision making across the industry.

1. Enabling Client Engagement

The first high-impact area within wealth management is all about enabling client engagement. This one tops the list for good reason(s); importantly, it influences every component and area of the wealth management industry.

It also serves as both a major sticking point, or challenge, and a focus area for the firms and advisors that are looking to stand out from the crowd now and well into the future. If your firm is in active pursuits to offer differentiated value, which should always be the case, then you’ll want to pay close attention to this area.

But how exactly do work towards “enabling client engagement”?

While there are several paths to success in this area, this ultimately comes down to things such as delivering personalized solutions and client experiences, providing access to information (both personal and business), creating a smooth onboarding experience all the way through to delivering advice and support after solutions and products have been delivered to clients and more.

Really, this component is all about putting your clients first and establishing the rules of engagement that ultimately make it easier for your clients to do business with your firm and your advisors.

Client expectations have shifted—now more than ever, clients want to feel in control of their money and their information. Technology helps remove the ‘black box’ around their personal and financial information, keeping your clients in the loop when it comes to all things that involve them and their relationship with your firm.

Personalization at scale happened to be one of the major takeaway themes at this year’s T3 Conference, showing the prevalence and impact this area has across the entire industry.

Importantly, let us not forget that in any given industry, trust is the ultimate currency—this could not be more true when it comes to managing people’s financial lives. Those who build trust by way of enabling client engagement will be the ones who reap the benefits of winning the hearts, minds, and wallets of their clients.

2. Automating Advisor Workflow

One of the (many) reasons institutions and firms find themselves competitively disadvantaged results from legacy systems and processes in addition to the terribly inefficient workflow at the front office and advisor level of the organization. 

In fact, we know very well that money managers, financial advisors, insurance agents, family office managers, you name it, struggle on a daily basis because they are constantly bogged down with the manual administrative tasks and regulatory requirements they’re obligated to fill. Fortunately, technology exists to augment, automate, and integrate workflow.

A few examples of workflow that takes place day-in and day-out include:

➜ Collecting, organizing, and storing client documents
➜ Sharing new resources and materials with advisors and clients
➜ Creating and maintaining security and compliance checklists
➜ New client onboarding and account openings  

There are several ways to augment workflow through robust functionality offered by WealthTech solutions, however, from what we’re hearing and seeing, the lens of focus is on firms looking to integrate disparate components with an emphasis on front and middle office responsibilities.

Deeper, bidirectional integrations, as an example, are being used to repurpose and sync data, prefill forms using the information you already have, automatically file and distribute advisor and client documents into your secure digital vault, consolidate and acquire information, and so forth. As traditional institutions become more connected, they are able to work faster and have more flexibility with the services they offer and the way that they operate.

Ultimately, automating advisor workflow boils down to streamlining efficiencies across the gamut of daily activities and administrative burdens that help firms and advisors increase their capacity so that more of their time can be spent on what matters—driving new business and spending quality time with existing clients longing for an engaging experience.

3. Embracing Financial Wellness

Advisors looking to remain relevant and reliable will ultimately need to understand their clients’ financial needs by adopting a holistic approach to the overall financial picture; one that better suits and compliments clients’ interests, lifestyles, and goals.

A large piece of this includes embedding non-traditional products/assets into Wealth Platforms and what’s being offered or made available to clients.

Ultimately, more comprehensive wealth management services/offerings are and will continue to be offered to clients to meet their growing demands and lifestyles.

There is an ever-prevalent macro-trend of moving away from purely investment management-focused, to financial planning, and then even further to customize the advice and client experience advisors deliver for their clients.

If you are an advisor defaulting to model portfolios and limited or basic financial plans, your days are numbered, this cookie-cutter approach won’t quite cut it anymore.

4. Enhancing Information Security and Compliance Capabilities

Increased regulatory scrutiny across multiple fronts, growing practice management concerns around insecure document exchanges and document retention policies, data breaches, fines, and costs associated with non-compliance, all add to the complexity and challenges compliance teams are faced with. All of which continue to drive greater usage and adoption of compliance and RegTech solutions.

In particular, the wake of covid has significantly accelerated regulatory and compliance pressures across all fronts to better protect corporate and client data while handling most back and middle office tasks in a remote-first world.

When you consider the impact and significance the above has on daily operations and building trust with clients (which we talked about earlier), there is no wonder why spending on compliance programs and technology remains one of the largest investments that firms will make in any given year.

Overcoming the many challenges associated with these regulatory measures means technology is table stakes. According to experts at Harvard, technology is what will help institutions and firms “more cost-effectively meet regulatory requirements” — making the playing field between existing institutions and new financial innovators considerably more level.

Remember, spending on compliance is not an expense; it’s an investment to protect your firm, your advisors, and importantly, your clients.

5. Leveraging Critical (and Emerging) Technologies

When looking across the industry, it’s clear to see that institutions and firms will continue to leverage emerging technologies to enable high-impact business processes and ultimately drive scale at every level of their organization from their back office straight through to client interactions and household experiences.

There is an acceleration toward multi-cloud architectures and modular API solutions to streamline, augment, and connect workflow across disparate systems to realize operational efficiencies. This extends well beyond automating front office workflow, to creating a fully integrated experience across the entire organization.

Digital transformation affords firms competitive advantages that have historically been reserved only for larger institutions with multi-million dollar technology budgets.

In a recent Harvard Professional Development article, experts suggest traditional banks and other wealth management firms bound by heavy regulations are finding it difficult to keep up with smaller, more nimble, and flexible firms and fintech companies. By leveraging new technologies such as digitization and AI, traditional players in the wealth management market can level the playing field.

Time to Make Your Impact Today

The above five high-impact areas within wealth management are the critical areas where firms and advisors can and should invest time and resources into to drive material impact and create a competitive advantages now and well into the future.

The not-so-secret, secret? Technology combined with efficient process is the foundation for almost everything.

5 Wealth Management Marketing Trends - FutureVault

5 Wealth Management Marketing Trends That Will Define Success For Firms Over the Next Decade

When it comes to presenting a public image and marketing any type of wealth management firm or advisory practice, it should come as no surprise that credibility is important.

In fact, authenticity is the future. 

For Wealth Management firms, including Broker-Dealers and Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs) looking to grow their business, the playing field has never been more open—or more level. The digital age we’re living in has simplified the process of finding prospective clients, learning more about their wants and needs, and engaging with them in new ways that are more personal and seemingly effective over their lifetime. 

A firm’s success in these endeavors will be determined less by the size of its budget, and more by its ability to embrace change. With the spectacular growth of social media paired with the seemingly unlimited sharing (and sometimes oversharing) of personal information, firms (and advisors) are at risk of falling behind if they fail to embrace the idea of “pro-personal” marketing and branding.

Continue reading for a look at the ever-evolving marketing landscape, and the five wealth management marketing trends advisors and firms should follow in order to optimize their success and ultimately win the hearts, minds, and wallets of clients for the next decade to come. 

1. Personalizing the Customer Journey

As both client and prospect engagement becomes hyper-personalized, firms and advisors will use defining life moments as their marketing advantage. Successful firms will be aware of the special moments and significant milestones in their clients’ lives, such as:

➜ Sending children to college
➜ Retirement
➜ Anniversaries
➜ Birthdays
➜ Buying a home
➜ And more

Each of these major life events can serve as a touchpoint to provide relevant, informative, and educational content to clients. 

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms that offer a bird’s-eye view of the client and their activity with the firm will provide marketers with insights into the client’s life and how they interact with the business’ content. From there, marketing professionals can then create a unique plan that speaks directly to each individual, enabling firms and advisors to build trust.

2. Using Data to Make Informed, Customer-Focused Decisions

In 2022, there is substantially more data available regarding customers than even just a few years ago. And in the next decade, we can expect these client data points to expand and grow exponentially. 

This data—and the people it represents—will play an important role in how marketing success is measured and met. However, as the magnitude of data grows, continuing to manage it will become increasingly more complex. 

To simplify the process while effectively using this new information, marketers will need to consolidate customer data points in order to make informed, customer-focused decisions. Many financial advisory firms will need to build and adopt hybrid systems over the next decade.

By simultaneously using CRM and data management platforms, firms and their advisors will be able to build increasingly more comprehensive and complex audiences based on the extracted data. 

3. Increasing Customer Engagement Through Real-Time Interactions 

Real-time engagement and interactions have already become common practice, so it’s safe to assume this will continue to be a common expectation from clients—even from smaller advisory firms. 

As investors/clients come to expect real-time encounters, firms and advisors will need to put the client first by:

➜ Responding in a timely manner
➜ Opening the channels for conversations to occur
➜ Caring about what their clients actually say
➜ Finding the right “place” to engage in conversations
➜ Connecting channels dynamically, in which messages and content in one channel are based on actions in another

While the above may seem somewhat cliche or even as if we’re pointing out the obvious, putting each of them to practice and baking them into your marketing and communications process is easier said than done. However, when done right, this gives your clients faith and confidence in your ability to go above and beyond their needs—and that’s where the magic happens.

4. Artificial Intelligence Will Support the Customer Journey 

While many companies have been slow to adopt Artificial Intelligence (AI), often due to steep implementation costs, the technology is quickly gaining momentum and being used widely across the financial services and wealth management industry. Financial advisors and RIAs—who have already been hit by industry changes—are at serious risk of being left behind if they refuse to embrace Artificial Intelligence in the years to come.

Avoiding AI adoption can pose a tremendous risk to firms, especially those working with tech-savvy Millennials and Generation X clients. These younger generations expect their advisors to work with them on their terms, and their stance on that remains quite clear.

It’s important to note that meeting clients’ expectations of personal, real-time interactions is no small task. And it’s often one that’s beyond the capabilities of firms and advisors. AI is a key tool in meeting the new higher standards that firms are being held to. 

Ultimately, Artificial Intelligence will enhance advisors’ analytical capabilities and automate several mundane tasks, reducing back and front office costs across the board.

5. Navigating an Accelerating Adoption Curve

As the technology landscape and digital experiences continue to evolve, it’s critical for firms to stay dynamic. By being able to adapt to new trends and technologies, firms and advisors can continue to remain ahead of the curve and top of mind to their clients.  

However, while new technologies prove to be beneficial, they also carry significant risks which often include considerations around resource allocation, implementation time/costs, as well as the creation of data silos. It’s critical for firms to ensure the right systems and integrations are in place that allows them to pull and sync key data points in order to optimize customer journeys and experiences.  

Centralized and integrated platforms aren’t just beneficial for marketing to new and existing clients—they’re table stakes for back, middle, and front office functions across the board.

Looking Ahead

Technology solution providers like FutureVault provide Broker-Dealers, RIAs and financial advisory firms, Family Offices, Credit Unions, and more with the solutions—and confidence—to stay ahead of the curve and gain a competitive advantage by offering a highly personalized experience via Personal Life Management digital vaults. An experience that connects all levels of the organization together, within one secure and single source of truth, like never before.

Request a personalized demo today to learn how we’re successfully improving compliance, driving operational efficiencies, and helping front, middle, and back-office teams scale through secure document exchange and digital vault solutions. 

Document Management Systems 101 for Financial Services Organizations - FutureVault

Document Management Systems 101: Why do Financial Services Organizations Need One?

Giving you the 101 on how Document Management Systems provide operational efficiencies for front and back-office teams.

Document management is the process of handling documents in a way that information can be stored, organized, accessed, shared, and distributed efficiently—and effectively. A Document Management System (DMS) is an essential tool that can help streamline document management practices for all types of organizations for both internal and external use.  

Financial services organizations, in particular, deal with high-stakes corporate and client information that must be kept confidential and secure, accessed quickly, and readily available for multiple stakeholders including advisors and third-party professionals. As such, having an efficient way to manage this information—via Document Management Systems—is table stakes. 

But what exactly should firms and advisors be looking for when considering a document management solution to take their information and document management practices to the next level? 

Keep reading to find out the benefits of a Document Management System and how to choose the right one for your firm. 

What is a Document Management System and how does it work?

A Document Management System is a software solution for organizing, securing, digitizing, and managing documents as electronic files. Although most Document Management Systems store data in the cloud, they are much more than simple cloud storage where documents get dumped.

As a refresher, cloud storage tools are used as a simple way to store and organize documents, making them accessible across different devices. Document Management Systems on the other hand provides much more than simple storage—security, compliance, collaboration, workflow automation, and importantly, peace of mind. 

Document Management Systems were bred out of necessity as companies shifted their operations away from a paper-based office with manila folders and filing cabinets. Since then, document management has taken on a more central role in the enterprise tech stack, facilitating workflows and bridging disparate repositories into a central hub.

And while organizations of all sizes can benefit from Document Management Systems, enterprise and financial institutions that heavily rely on document-oriented processes are likely to see the most significant positive impact on their operations.

The Benefits of a DMS for Financial Services Organizations

Your Document Management System should save your back and front offices hours of tedious tasks and the exasperation of not finding the documents they need quickly, ultimately improving overall efficiency and driving productivity. Let’s dive into some of the main benefits below. 

1. Intelligent workflow

A Document Management System should provide you with the capability to find important data and documents—exactly when you need them. Structuring an efficient workflow to support advisor, client, and third-party collaboration is one of the primary benefits of having a DMS platform. 

2. Security & protection

A Document Management System will help your organization keep corporate and client documents safe with world-class security standards, including the latest encryption standards, multi-factor authentication, access controls, and secure around-the-clock monitoring among many other security features that provide you with the assurance you deserve. 

3. Structure & organization

With a Document Management System, you’ll have the capability to create the structure and organization you need to manage important corporate and client documents across multiple levels of your organization.

4. Compliance

In addition to cybersecurity, a Document Management System will improve compliance management across the organization by improving corporate governance standards, minimizing data breach risks, and enabling your firm to easily meet data and document retention policies. 

5. Internal & external collaboration

Your Document Management System should provide you with the capability to deliver, securely store, and manage both important corporate and client documents within one centralized platform. On a side note, did you know that document issues account for more than 21% of daily productivity loss?

6. Engage & retain your clients

A Document Management System will significantly improve how you and your clients collaborate, and manage information and necessary documents, together.

7. Save time, money & resources

Document management software helps organizations save as much as $1 to $5 per document. By having a Document Management System, you’ll easily reduce printing, mailing, and storage costs while lowering your non-revenue generating client requests and tasks.

Choosing the right Document Management System for your organization

The key to selecting the right system for your organization is to review and assess your specific needs and then make a shortlist of platforms that provide you with the value to help you reach short and long-term goals. Before making that decision, some factors to consider include:

➜ The scale of your operations (how much documentation will be stored)

➜ The different types of data and information you need to manage

➜ How your documents are used and how frequently they need to be accessed

➜ The integration and workflow capabilities you need

➜ The level of information security required

➜ Compliance requirements management

➜ Your technology budget

In addition to these considerations listed above, the system your organization decides to move forward with should provide you with the benefits mentioned in the above section to allow your organization to run your business more efficiently, and make your life easier. 

In essence, a robust Document Management System provides accountability, structure, compliance, integrity, and protection. It saves resources, time, and money. And it helps the environment by reducing the need for paper and physical storage, among other things.

Multi-Tier Digital Vaults are taking Document Management Systems to new heights 

Multi-Tier Digital Vault platforms are the next iteration of secure document management, helping organizations of all types, in particular financial services organizations, scale document management practices across all levels of their organization.

FutureVault’s Multi-Tiered Digital Vault solution effectively addresses document management needs at all levels of your organization—providing you with the capability to deliver, securely store, and manage important documents and files across multiple levels, business lines, and jurisdictions of your organization and with your clients in one centralized environment. 

Importantly, from a compliance and operational perspective, having all critical information assets accessible within one secure environment drives tremendous impact that leads to improved productivity and significant time and cost savings.

“Multi-Tiering” is a game-changer for firms by essentially redefining the way information assets and documents are managed across the many levels of their organization. 

Each level and each role within distinct levels have a specific set of permissions and features that they can utilize to help streamline daily workflows, saving significant time and improving productivity. 

Imagine the power this affords your organization—from your back-office to front office advisors, relationship managers, office managers, to your clients, their network, and their families—everyone has a unique “role” and plays by their own set of rules within the Vault.

The concept moves away from a one-way, static document “feed” or repository to a secure, collaborative, multi-way secure document exchange platform where all constituents involved win.